Croke Park's New Turf

The Gish

Just seen the new turf in Croke park and to be honest I am not that impressed. I have seen better turf in some of the county or even club grounds around the country.
The turf in places leaves a lot to be desired.
I am not sure of the exact cost involved in putting this new turf down but maybe the GAA executive should look for some of their or should I say OUR money back.???????

Trampas

Thought the same myself.

They were never going to get the pitch ready in a few days.

I can just imagine what it is going to be like tomorrow for the start of Dublin vs Kerry after 3 games on it.

homerjay2005

id looks bad but so far doesn not appear to be impacting the game. saying that, donegal corner back just slipped to give away a 45. they are lucky it aint raining.

Daysha

It does look very patchy alright, but it seems to be holding up well so far.

Orizio

Hard to tell when you can't walk on it and feel it really. I'm sure it will hold up for tomorrow.

Crash Bang Wall

They are lucky in that its not raining. Any rain would cause the pitch to be an absolute mess imo

mrgaa1

When you lay sodding like what they've done it has to be wetted regularly so a little rain wouldn't make much difference to it.

seandugg

Trampas wrote: »

Thought the same myself.

They were never going to get the pitch ready in a few days.

I can just imagine what it is going to be like tomorrow for the start of Dublin vs Kerry after 3 games on it.

The pitch was ready fine in a few days.

http://www.examiner.ie/sport/croker-pitch-passes-test-97888.html

Tristram

I was under the impression that while it may not have looked the best the pitch was in good playing condition. Were there problems with the matches yesterday?

Mossy Monk

If Dublin had the rain we had last night then todays game could be interesting.

Flukey

I was there yesterday and the pitch looked terrible. The funny thing was that at various stages during the day the showed on the big screen, the digging of the pitch and it being put in again, all to a U2 soundtrack. It seemed a strange thing for them to do, especially with how bad the pitched now looked. It also meant that at one point the Artane Band were standing on the pitch, but had to wait a while until the piece had finished before they could start playing.

Kiera

I was at the games yesterday and the pitch is a disgrace. There's gaps everywhere and it looks extremely thin. They balls it up good and proper!

copacetic

All the players and analysts seemed to think it looked terrible but played fine, i.e all the edges etc were actually flat on the pitch but looked bad from above.

My worry would be that they got it like that by rolling it and cutting it like crazy, so its hard and there is little grass. There was a fair bit of slipping yesterday in the dry and we've already had a fair bit of rain today and more forecast so I'd imagine it will be like an ice rink.

Flukey

It's cloudy but dry in Dublin. According to the weather forecast, and looking at the satellite and radar on the Met Éireann site, the rain isn't due on the southwest coast till around midday, and will then spread to the rest of the country. Given the match is at 2pm, it might stay dry for it. Maybe the rain hitting Kerry first is a good omen.

jamsieboy86

The pitched looked really bad, but it seemed to play well, the ball was bouncing normally and the players footing was ok.

micks

The Gish wrote: »

Just seen the new turf in Croke park and to be honest I am not that impressed. I have seen better turf in some of the county or even club grounds around the country.
The turf in places leaves a lot to be desired.
I am not sure of the exact cost involved in putting this new turf down but maybe the GAA executive should look for some of their or should I say OUR money back.???????

Get a refund?
They have got what they paid for rightly or wrongly they have got an installation that should have taken weeks to bed in to be completed in days and successfully played games on the new surface. The pitch will look class when it beds in properly, while I dont agree with the way it has gone and IMO its bad PR, but from the GAA's point of view it has saved in the region of 400k and been boosted by the financial income from the U2 gigs so after they get this weekend out of the way they'll get over the whole issue and move on a couple of million richer.
I am however they didn't cash in further by selling the old turf - what club wouldn't want their goal mouths re-sodded with Croke Park turf or who would turn down Croke Park turf for their garden?

The Gish

micks wrote: »

Get a refund?
They have got what they paid for rightly or wrongly they have got an installation that should have taken weeks to bed in to be completed in days and successfully played games on the new surface. The pitch will look class when it beds in properly, while I dont agree with the way it has gone and IMO its bad PR, but from the GAA's point of view it has saved in the region of 400k and been boosted by the financial income from the U2 gigs so after they get this weekend out of the way they'll get over the whole issue and move on a couple of million richer.
I am however they didn't cash in further by selling the old turf - what club wouldn't want their goal mouths re-sodded with Croke Park turf or who would turn down Croke Park turf for their garden?

Well Micks,
A week has passed....what do you think of the pitch now? Looking ta the Mayo Meath game today the players were slipping all over the place. Blame the rain beforehand?? I dont know. the hurling game seems to be going well. Maybe it was the type of boots the players were wearing??
The pitch still looks like crap from the TVs perspective.

John The Bad

I don't care how it looks; it's how it plays that counts. It seemed fine last weekend. But today, the bit of rain seemed to screw things up. Whether that was down to the new surface or the wrong choice of stud by the players, we don't know yet. It was a hell of a gamble by the GAA, ripping up and relaying the sod in such a short turnaround. I don't know how I feel about it still -- I am a U2 fan and truly enjoyed the concert I was at but if it's the cause of a return to a poor sod in Croker... well there'll be hell to pay.

micks

The Gish wrote: »

Well Micks,
A week has passed....what do you think of the pitch now? Looking ta the Mayo Meath game today the players were slipping all over the place. Blame the rain beforehand?? I dont know. the hurling game seems to be going well. Maybe it was the type of boots the players were wearing??
The pitch still looks like crap from the TVs perspective.

Here you go highlighted a few bits for you to help you :

micks wrote: »

Get a refund?
They have got what they paid for rightly or wrongly they have got an installation that should have taken weeks to bed in to be completed in days and successfully played games on the new surface. The pitch will look class when it beds in properly, while I dont agree with the way it has gone and IMO its bad PR, but from the GAA's point of view it has saved in the region of 400k and been boosted by the financial income from the U2 gigs so after they get this weekend out of the way they'll get over the whole issue and move on a couple of million richer.
I am however they didn't cash in further by selling the old turf - what club wouldn't want their goal mouths re-sodded with Croke Park turf or who would turn down Croke Park turf for their garden?

Warper

The pitch today was a disgrace with players slipping all over the place. There were patches all over the place and it looked horrible. Ah sure what do the GAA care, they got the cash from the U2 gigs to keep them warm - who cares about the All-Ireland series.

The Gish

micks wrote: »

Here you go highlighted a few bits for you to help you :

Ehhhh Micks I was agreeing with you....Geeeeeez.
:)
Anyway...I have just spoken to one of the players from the Kildare team of last weekend and he agreed with the point that the pitch looks bad. He said that parts of it were fine to play on but the majority of the surface area needs further attention.

blackhead

Warper wrote: »

The pitch today was a disgrace with players slipping all over the place. There were patches all over the place and it looked horrible. Ah sure what do the GAA care, they got the cash from the U2 gigs to keep them warm - who cares about the All-Ireland series.

+1